I've been an entrepreneur for nearly my entire life. Typical kid with the lemonade stand story (although I started selling broken toys instead of lemonade at first). I've gone on to start much larger companies that have led to both success and failure. Venture backed, partnerships, bootstrapped, high growth, retail, technology, franchise and more. Go here for the long winded version: My Blog -- or even better, follow me on Twitter. I'm also on Google+.

The Grass Is Greener Where You Water It

I’ve been overusing this quote lately. Chances are if we’ve met or talked, you have likely heard me mention it if the situation had some correlation to attitudes and/or outcomes. Since I like it so much, I thought I’d better find it’s origin, because, despite my heavy usage, I knew I had heard it somewhere else first. According to a favorite website of mine (RapGenius), they say it comes from a line Big Sean uses in his collaboration with Justin Bieber on the song, ‘As Long As You Love Me’. Besides the fact that you just learned that I like rap and Justin Bieber, you’ll also learn how appropriate that song title is. I’ll explain more why later.

Starting and running a business is incredibly hard. Notice I didn’t say a “successful” business either. Starting and running a successful business is not just incredibly hard, it’s highly improbable. Many of my favorite bloggers have already waxed poetically about just how hard it is, so this post isn’t about that. The odds are horribly low that you’ll do it — and yet you and others continue, as did I, to try. However — trying, working hard, sacrificing, taking risks and all of the other typical things associated with a business you own are not what this post is about either.

This post is about loyalty.

Much of the time things don’t work out between employees, employers, partners and investors. In fact, there are almost always casualties along the timeline of a business. And there should be. People don’t perform, they don’t get along and hard decisions have to be made. I’ve been there, and on both sides of the coin, so I know how it feels and I know how it works. However, when I look back on those situations — where people were let go, new hires were brought in, new partners were sought, new investors came to the table and all of the other changes that happen in a business — I can’t help but wonder if the outcome would have been better had we watered the grass we had instead of looked across the fence to the proverbial “other side”.

I’ll use a singular example that relates to both companies I’ve been involved in as well as many that I’ve talked with. Company A started with a few great employees. Some co-founders, others early stage equity holders. Company A had some initial investors as well. As time goes on, Company A isn’t getting the traction they had hoped for. Not enough revenue, not enough customers, not enough profit and so on. So as Company A begins to think about the future, they think about how they might get there. Since they haven’t gotten there yet, that often makes them think they are missing something. And they are likely right, they are missing something.

But it might not be new people.

They easy way out is to look to the greener grass and aspire to run on it. New hires, new money and new partners can be very enticing. Sometimes, in fact dare I say most times, they may even be the best option. However, all too often (myself included), this option is taken too soon or too easily. What if your current employees, your current partners, your current investors and your current co-founders can become the best option you could ever hope for? You’ll never know unless you spend the time and energy “watering the grass” as it where. ’As Long As You Love Me’ says Big Sean and The Biebs (who has a great entrepreneurial story in his own right). They are right. Business is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately kind of affair. Since the results of the day are often the focus, entrepreneurs can fall in love with a key hire, a new set of investors or a talented marketing executive. They aren’t the answer. There are no silver bullets. Having the right team is everything, but stop to think for a minute — in fact much longer — about what you’ve been thru with who you have. When the going gets tough, the easy way out is to come up with justifiable reasons to move ahead without them. I’m challenging you to think about this long and hard though. The team you have may eventually be the one that provides optimal results for the company.

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